SEC’s Crypto Gamble: A New Era (or Total Chaos)?

The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), that paragon of bureaucratic ingenuity, announced on Tuesday a seismic shift in the crypto cosmos: authorized participants (APs)—those financial alchemists of the modern age—may now engage in in-kind transactions for crypto exchange-traded products (ETPs). One might think this is how such products functioned since the dawn of time, but no, the SEC’s tardy epiphany arrives with all the subtlety of a sledgehammer. 🤡

APs, those noble knights of market liquidity (Goldman Sachs, UBS, Citi, Citadel, etc.), can now swap crypto assets directly for ETP shares, bypassing the tedious ritual of converting Bitcoin into cash. A revelation! Imagine: no more liquidating assets “like a primitive who hasn’t discovered fire.” 🚨 The efficiency! The cost savings! The thrill of not being financially medieval! Chairman Paul Atkins, ever the visionary, declared this “a new day at the SEC,” as if the agency had just discovered the wheel. His words dripped with the urgency of a man who’s finally mastered Excel. 💸

Investors, take heed! These “approvals” promise to make ETPs “less costly and more efficient,” though one wonders if “costly” previously meant “requiring a small sacrifice to the gods of red tape.” The SEC’s “fit-for-purpose regulatory framework” now includes allowing transactions that aren’t conducted in the dark ages. Truly, we are living in a future once confined to science fiction. 🚀

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2025-07-30 01:27